Training Cutlery

ABSTRACT

The training cutlery of the present invention comprises of a handle and three indentations placed in said handle for finger placement. For a fork or spoon, the first indentation is located at the left side of the handle and is configured to receive a thumb. The second indentation is located at the right side of the handle and is configured to receive an index finger. The third indentation is located at the bottom surface of the handle and is configured to receive a middle finger. For a knife, the first indentation is located at a left side of the handle and is configured to receive a thumb. The second indentation is located at a right side of the handle and is configured to receive a middle finger. The third indentation is located at a top side of the handle and is configured to receive an index finger.

This application is a continuation-in-part of, and claims the benefit of priority of, design patent application Ser. Nos. 29/394,913 and 29/394,914 filed Jun. 22, 2011 and Jun. 23, 2011, respectively, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to training cutlery (knife, fork, spoon, etc.) having indentations configured to place fingers on the handle of the cutlery so to aid a user, who may not be familiar with using cutlery.

BACKGROUND

Using cutlery correctly and effectively can be difficult for a user, especially if a user is a child or someone who may not be familiar with using cutlery such as a knife, fork, spoon, etc. in their everyday life. Conventional cutlery is made for the general public, thus leaving an unfamiliar user to one's own interpretation on the proper way to hold cutlery. More often, unfamiliar users end up misusing cutlery. As a result, conventional cutlery is inadequate for training a user.

In an effort to provide cutlery that can effectively train a user who may not be familiar with using cutlery, many attempts have been made to specially design cutlery or to provide attachments to cutlery for easy usage.

A prior art implementation of cutlery concentrates on providing correct placement for just one finger, for example, such as an index finger for a knife or fork or a thumb for a spoon. It is believed that with the correct placement of just one finger it is quite easy to teach a user to hold a knife or fork correctly. However, by having placement for only one finger, the prior art still leaves room for incorrect usage of cutlery by misplacing the other fingers, leading to an ineffective usage of cutlery.

SUMMARY

Embodiments are therefore directed to training cutlery, which substantially overcome one or more of the problems due to the limitations and disadvantages of the related art.

It is therefore a feature of an embodiment to provide training cutlery having three finger placements. For example, for thumb, index, and middle finger placements on the handle so that a user may be able to know exact places for one's fingers resulting in correct usage of cutlery.

In one embodiment, training cutlery includes a handle joined to an operative portion at a front end of the handle, and three indentations placed in said handle for finger placement. The first indentation is located at the left side of the handle and is configured to receive a thumb. The second indentation is located at the right side of the handle and is configured to receive an index finger and a third indentation is located at the bottom side of the handle and is configured to receive a middle finger.

In another embodiment, a training cutlery includes a handle joined to an operative portion at a front end of the handle, and three indentations placed in said handle for finger placement. The first indentation may be located at the left side of the handle and may be configured to receive a thumb. The second indentation may be located at the right side of the handle and may be configured to receive a middle finger. The third indentation may be located at the top side of the handle and may be configured to receive an index finger.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

The drawings depict the tines of a fork, the bowl of a spoon, and the blade of a knife in broken lines. Those portions shown in broken lines are for illustrative purposes only. Other shapes and relative sizes of tines, bowls or blades can be used with the handles.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a training fork.

FIG. 2 is a top side view of the training fork of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a bottom side view of the training fork of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a right side view of the training fork of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a left side view of the training fork.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a training spoon.

FIG. 7 is a top view of the training spoon of FIG. 6.

FIG. 8 is a bottom side view of the training spoon of FIG. 6.

FIG. 9 is a right side view of the training spoon of FIG. 6.

FIG. 10 is a left side view of the training spoon of FIG. 6.

FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a training knife.

FIG. 12 is a top side view of the training knife of FIG. 11.

FIG. 13 is a bottom side view of the training knife of FIG. 11.

FIG. 14 is a left side view of the training knife of FIG. 11.

FIG. 15 is a right side view of the training knife of FIG. 11.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reference will now be made in detail to the present exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.

FIGS. 1-5 show an exemplary training cutlery in the form of a fork 10. The fork 10 comprises a handle 11. The handle 11 may preferably be a rounded shape with an elongated longitudinal axis, without any sharp or abrupt corners. The handle 11 may be thick, and thus have a large surface area. The relatively large surface area of the handle 11 can completely or largely fill a space in a user's grasp to enable a user to easily grip the handle 11. The space can be formed in the user's grasp once the fingers are placed correctly on the handle. The handle 11 may be connected to an operative portion at its one end at a joint 12. The operative portion may be fork tines as illustrated in FIGS. 1-5, a spoon bowl as illustrated in FIGS. 6-10, or a knife blade as illustrated in FIGS. 11-15. However, the operative portion may not be limited thereto.

The handle 11 may include three indentations 13, 14, 15 configured to receive user's fingers. For the fork 10, a first indentation 13 may be located at the left side of the handle 11 and configured to receive a thumb. A second indentation 14 may be located at the right side of the handle 11 and configured to receive an index finger. A third indentation 16 (shown in FIG. 3) may be located at the bottom side of the handle 11 and configured to accept a middle finger. By placing these indentations in the handle 11, the user would be instructed on the proper placement of fingers on the handle of the cutlery, so as to enable a proper and effective use of such a cutlery. The indentation placement also allows a sure and comfortable grip of the handle.

Referring to FIGS. 2-5, the indentations in the handle 11 are further described. The first indentation 13 may be placed on the left side of the handle 11 and extended toward a left top surface of the top side of the handle 11. The second indentation 14 may be placed on the right side of the handle 11 and extended toward a right top surface of the top side of the handle 11. The first and second indentations 13, 14 are, preferably, of oval shape to accommodate the shape of finger tips and of sufficient depth to prevent accidental displacement of the tips of the fingers during the normal usage of the cutlery.

The first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 may be placed in the handle 11 symmetrically along a longitudinal axis of the handle 11. More specifically, the first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 may be a mirror image, of each other along the longitudinal axis of the handle 11 when viewed from the above, as illustrated in FIG. 2. The first indentation 13 may alternatively be slightly bigger than the second indentation 14 as illustrated in FIG. 3. The bigger size of the first indentation 13 enables a user to exert enough strength to support the cutlery in one's grip because a user would be able to lean the entire length of thumb against the handle 11. The first indentation 13 may be placed more centrally in the handle on the top surface of the handle than the second indentation 14 (as shown in FIG. 1). In other words, the first indentation 13 may be placed more deeply in the handle toward the center longitudinal line of the handle 11 than the second indentation 14.

The first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 may be placed closer to the joint 12 than to the rear of the handle so that the user would hold the training cutlery closer to the operative portion, e.g. the fork tines. By having the first and second indentations 13, 14 closer to the operative portion, the user may have more control of the training cutlery. The first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 may be slanted toward the operative portion (as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5). The first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 may be pointed toward the fork tines and spread out toward the bottom side of the handle. For example, the first indentation 13 and the second indentation may be placed on the handle in such a way to form a triangle or a letter A shape.

Referring to FIG. 3, the third indentation 15 may be placed directly under the first indentation 13 and the second indentation 14 in the bottom side of the handle 11. The third indentation 15 may be placed perpendicular to the longitudinal axis in the bottom side of the handle 11. Preferably, the third indentation 15 may touch the first indentation 13 to the right and the second indentation 14 to the left. Therefore, the third indentation 15 may be in between the first and the second indentations 13, 14. The third indentation 15 may be placed closer to the joint 12 than to the rear of the handle.

FIGS. 6 to 10 illustrate the training cutlery in the form of a spoon 10 a. The spoon 10 a includes a first indentation 13 a, a second indentation 14 a, and a third indentation 15 a. Since the elements of handle 11 a are the same as that of handle 11 in FIGS. 1 to 5, detailed explanation of handle 11 a will not be made here.

Another embodiment of training cutlery is in the form of a knife 20 in FIGS. 11 to 15. A handle 21 may be joined to an operative portion at one end through a joint 22. The operative portion may be a knife blade. The handle 21 may have a rounded contour without sharp edges for easy grip by a user. The handle 21 may be shaped in such a way that the one end near the joint part 22 is thicker than the other end of the handle 21. The handle 21 may have three indentations, 23, 24, 25.

Referring to FIGS. 12 and 15, the three indentations in the handle 21 are further described. The first indentation 23 may be located mainly on the lower left side of the handle 21, and may be configured to receive a thumb. A portion of the first indentation 23 may be placed in a bottom side of handle 21. The second indentation 24 may located at the right side of the handle 21, and may be configured to receive a middle finger of a user. The third indentation 25 may located on a top side of the handle 21 and may be configured to receive an index finger.

Referring to FIG. 12, the third indentation 25 may be placed close to the joint 22. By placing the index finger indentation closer to the knife blade, a user can easily exert good cutting pressure. The third indentation 25 may be shaped to receive a tip of the index finger. The third indentation 25 may be slanted from the rear left side toward the right top side of the handle 21 when viewed from above. In other words, a user's index finger may be placed on the top side of the handle 21 as if the index finger is pointing toward the right side direction.

Referring to FIG. 13, the first indentation 23 may be placed on the left side of the handle 21 and then partially wrapped around the bottom side of the handle 21 (as illustrated in FIG. 14). The first indentation 23 may be placed further from the operative portion compared to the third indentation 25 and the second indentation 24. Therefore, the first indentation 23 may not be symmetrical with the second indentation 24 along the handle 21.

Referring to FIG. 15, the second indentation 24 may be placed at the right side of the handle 21. The second indentation 24 may traverse from a top portion of the right side to a bottom portion of the right side. Therefore, the second indentation 24 may be placed across the right side of the handle in its entirety and can be largely perpendicular to a longitudinal axis in the right side of the handle 21.

The indentations preferably are oval shaped, however they are not limited thereto. The handles 10, 10 a, and 21 may be made of two materials of different hardness. An inner core of the handle 21 may be made up of a harder material such as, but not limited to, polypropylene. Such a hard material component provides the backbone of the cutlery and structural rigidity. The inner core of the handle 21 may be surrounded by a softer layer made up of a material such as, but not limited to, Kraton or silicone. The softer layer of the handle may provide comfort to a user who may be a young child. The combination of these two different layers of hardness in the handle enables the cutlery to prevent undesirable bending while providing comfort at the same time.

In one alternative, the core of the handle may be comprised of the same material as the operative portion and can be unitarily formed. Thus the operative portion cannot separate from the core. The operative portion can be, for example, a metal, including coated metals, or a synthetic plastic material such as the above polypropylene. In the case of a unitary core and metal operative portion, the core portion can be coated with the soft material alone, or the core can have the harder material layered with the soft material.

In the preceding specification, various preferred embodiments have been described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will, however, be evident that various other modifications and changes may be made thereto, and additional embodiments may be implemented, without departing from the broader scope of the invention as set forth in the claims that follow. The specification and drawings are accordingly to be regarded in an illustrative rather than restrictive sense.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. For example, right-handed handles are shown and described, but a left-handed design is readily implemented. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims. 

1. A training cutlery, comprising: a handle joined to an operative portion at a front end; and three indentations placed in said handle for finger placement; wherein: a first indentation is located at a left side of the handle and is configured to receive a thumb; a second indentation is located at a right side of the handle and is configured to receive an index finger; and a third indentation is located at a bottom side of the handle and is configured to receive a middle finger.
 2. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the first indentation is bigger than the second indentation, and wherein the first indentation is deeper into the handle than the second indentation.
 3. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the third indentation is directly under portions of the first and second indentations.
 4. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the first and second indentations are symmetrically placed along a longitudinal axis of the handle.
 5. The training cutlery of claim 4, wherein the first indentation and the second indentation are placed closer to the operative portion than to a rear end.
 6. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the first and the second indentations are slanted toward the operative portion and away from a rear end.
 7. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the first indentation is placed more centrally to the top surface of the handle than the second indentation.
 8. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the indentations are oval shaped.
 9. The training cutlery of claim 3, wherein the third indentation is placed perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the handle.
 10. The training cutlery of claim 1, wherein the handle is made of a first material and a second material and the second material is softer than the first material.
 11. A training cutlery, comprising: a handle joined to an operative portion at a front end; and three indentations placed in said handle for finger placement; wherein: a first indentation is located at a left side of the handle and is configured to receive a thumb; a second indentation is located at a right side of the handle and is configured to receive a middle finger; and a third indentation is located at a top side of the handle and is configured to receive an index finger.
 12. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the second indentation is placed more toward the operative portion at the top surface of the handle than the first indentation.
 13. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the first indentation is extended from the top side toward a bottom surface of the handle.
 14. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the third indentation is slanted longitudinally along the top surface of the handle.
 15. The training cutlery of claim 14, wherein the third indentation is slanted from the left side toward the right side of the top surface of the handle.
 16. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the second indentation traverses from a top portion of the right side to a bottom portion of the right side of the handle.
 17. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the indentations are oval shaped.
 18. The training cutlery of claim 14, wherein the third indentation is placed closer to the operative portion than the first and second indentations.
 19. The training cutlery of claim 11, wherein the handle is made of a first material and a second material and the second material is softer than the first material. 